Guerin explains why Wild traded veteran defenseman this offseason

The Minnesota Wild have had an eventful offseason making a couple of trades and signing some key players from last season. The Wild ended up trading star forward Kevin Fiala to the Los Angeles Kings, since they did not have the cap to re-sign the young forward. They also re-signed veteran goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury to a new contract, and to end the offseason they had to ultimately trade a veteran defenseman.

Minnesota recently traded defenseman Dmitry Kulikov to the Anaheim Ducks for future considerations, and Guerin explained the reasoning for doing this.

According to Michael Russo, Guerin felt that the Wild had one too many defenseman, and Kulikov ended up being the odd-man out. Calen Addison, one of the team's upcoming defensive prospects, still apparently needs to try extra hard to make the team as his spot is not confirmed. With that being said, it seems extremely likely that Addison will have a starting spot right out of camp unless something out of the ordinary occurs.

This move also allows the team to make a trade during training camp or early on in the season if they need to look externally for talent with the added cap space. Guerin also thanked Kulikov for his time with the Wild, but it was obvious that Kulikov was not a lock going into the season, as he was scratched for four of the Wild's six playoff games last season.

Guerin felt the #mnwild had one too many defenseman, says Addison must still push to make the team and this gives #mnwild flexibility capwise to make trade either before camp or in season if they're in need of external improvement— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) August 31, 2022

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